50 percent think even five is too many. Worse, according to a new survey, 37 percent of buyers say the information they are presented is irrelevant to their needs.
Data also shows that modern buyers
are educated and well informed, mean- ing the assets you put in front of them cannot be redundant or irrelevant. By working lockstep with marketing teams, however, this can be avoided. When equipped with the right tools, sales and marketing teams can see what assets are being accessed and engaged with most often by prospects. This data helps sales replicate success – espe- cially when paired with AI-driven con- tent recommendations – and enables marketing to invest in the content that impacts revenue.
2. TRANSFORM PRESENTA- TIONS INTO CONVERSATIONS The days of static, templated sales decks that simply swap one prospect’s logo for another are long gone. Your sales and marketing teams should start thinking about how information flows within a sales conversation. The modern buying scenarios are
more complex and require sellers to guide prospects through the process using information that is relevant, valuable, and can be adapted in real time. By creating an interactive content experience, sales teams can “read the room” and swap elements to better fit what the client is looking for. Such dynamic content provides a guided selling experience that adapts to the client’s unique pain points and industry challenges. The most advanced tools employ AI to help surface and filter the most relevant content based on the conversation and help drive the sale forward where a traditional sales deck cannot.
3. MAKE SMART USE OF AUG- MENTED-REALITY APPLICATIONS We’ve made the case for tailored and dynamic content that can change based on your customer’s needs. Now, let’s bring it into three dimen- sions. Augmented and virtual reality
are the new generation of tailored content, and allow you to digitally transform a prospect’s physical space to make a sale.
Consider healthcare. It’s impossible for salespeople to bring large, compli- cated medical equipment with them during a pitch. However, the smart- phone inside the rep’s pocket can solve for this. Augmented-reality ap- plications allow reps to show how the device will fit within the room where it would be used, and even demonstrate its capabilities and features. This cre- ates a much more engaging and visu- ally compelling presentation – whether inside an operating room, factory floor, or office setting.
4. TRAIN SALES TO RESPECT THE VALUE OF EXISTING CONTENT
On average, customers spend up to two business days conducting research before they reach out to a sales team. More likely than not, they are reading through materials and content that already exist – both on your Website and in other outlets – to get a sense of your product or service offerings. Therefore, it is paramount that sales teams are trained and well versed in the industry verticals where they operate and the personas to which they sell – and have a holistic understanding of prospects’ business challenges and how their solutions can help. The best buyer experiences happen when content is tailored to each prospect by a seller who knows exactly what a buyer is looking to solve. Invest in regular internal train- ings to ensure your sales team is skilled and knowledgeable. Additionally, sales teams must be kept up to date on the features and capabilities of the products they are selling. A client’s trust can quickly sour if the sales rep or team pitching is sharing out-of-date or inconsistent information. According to our own research at Showpad, practice can increase information retention by 70 percent – so sales teams should review new material thoroughly and often.
‘‘
If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes. JOHN WOODEN
5. REMAIN VIGILANT ABOUT THE SALES-AND-MARKETING DYNAMIC
Chief marketing officers and chief sales officers should make it a point to review how their teams are working together to enhance the buyer experi- ence. Regular check-ins and reviews of how content is being produced – and how sales is influencing this process – are critical. At its core, the content plan should center on ensuring sales and market- ing are aligned on common goals. If marketers don’t have data on sales’ needs or what content is ultimately af- fecting buyers’ decision making, they can’t create the sales materials that resonate with buyers in a scalable way. With the proper feedback cycle and tools in place, though, both teams can get what they need. To realize all these steps, con- sider investing in a sales enable- ment tool that makes it easier and intuitive for sales and marketing to work together. Instead of spending thousands on content that won’t be used, businesses should implement sales enablement platforms that al- low fewer (but searchable) pieces of content to be modified in real time for the prospect in the room, not a theoretical audience.
When marketing puts the necessary
resources at sales’ fingertips to create tailored, dynamic sales presentations, more meetings will end with hand- shakes than headshakes.
Rita Patel Jackson is VP of product market ing at Showpad.
SELLING POWER DECEMBER 2019 | 17 © 2019 SELLING POWER. CALL 1-800-752-7355 FOR REPRINT PERMISSION.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33
